1 million people signed up for the WoW Annual Pass
by Michael Sacco 
Feb 9th 2012 at 5:35PM
The Annual Pass's benefits are pretty alluring -- you get the standard digital download edition of Diablo 3 for free, as well as the Tyrael's Charger mount for your WoW character. It's likely that other benefits will be added to the pass over time, too. All you have to do in return is agree to pay for a year of WoW. The "agreement" itself doesn't appear to be legally binding, in that you can still cancel your subscription, at which point Blizzard will remove the benefits you received, no harm done.
What makes the Annual Pass so interesting, though, is that it's actually a better deal for Blizzard than it is for the players. With the past few quarterly subscriber number drops interpreted as doom and gloom by outsiders, Blizzard needed a way to make sure that those numbers either increased or at least stopped slipping. With Diablo III and more Starcraft II on the horizon, not to mention other potential MMO threats, it was vital that Blizzard figure out a way to keep people paying even if they weren't playing. The Annual Pass, with its attachment of a "free" game, did the job perfectly. Blizzard gets to look good to its investors and umbrella company, and a million of you get a horse and a hack-and-slasher.
Filed under: Blizzard
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
cosmicape Feb 9th 2012 5:43PM
1million out of 10.2million?
I am the 9.8%
Caylynn Feb 9th 2012 5:47PM
Hey, me too! ;)
bwh000 Feb 9th 2012 5:58PM
Actually...that 1 million is out of less than 10.2 million.
10.2 million is world subs, 1 million was Western annual subs.
DarkWalker Feb 9th 2012 7:45PM
I don't see why downvote the previous comment; he seems to be right.
AFAIK, the annual pass wasn't available in the whole world; most important, I don't think it was available in China and other such Asian countries. And, while the proportion might have changed, the last time Blizzard released any info on the amount of subscribers per world region, Asia made up roughly half the subscribers.
If those numbers are still valid, this means roughly 20% of the eligible player base took the Annual Pass offer.
Siorra Feb 9th 2012 5:43PM
I'll be a unique flower on my shiny new mou- Oh... Okay...
(I signed up too)
sparepartsmailbox Feb 12th 2012 4:33AM
So...... for those proclaiming the death of WoW.... 1 million people are (kinda) locked in with the annual pass.... and the other 9 million players are free to leave whenever they want... but haven't?
Not sounding so dead to me.... or even unwell.
Antonius.Prime Feb 9th 2012 5:56PM
Yep. Any time anything even remotely negative gets posted, out come the anti-wow heads.
"Lulz dey lost 10k subs brah! Wow is dyin *rabble rabble rabble"
Same kinds of plonkers whine that Notch and minecraft are useless too.
The COD-Halolz-Gears-Brah brigade.
That hymn sheet must be xerox'd blank by now.
Pity they won't accept the facts. They trot out half facts.
1. Lost about 2 million subs in 2 years. (That's still more active subs than all other MMOs put together, and the amount lost is more than are playing the nearest rival.)
2. Lots of vanity pets and mounts sold. (it's a form of DLC. Dont whinge about $10 pets when you drop $20 for 2 maps and a Skin.)
3. It's an old game. (And? CoD and MW use I'd tech 4. Quake 3 / Doom 3 tech basically.)
5. It's not original. (Ever hear the story about the Hollywood exec who worked every plot down to cinderella or goldilocks and would only make movies with Cinderella plots?)
Haters gonna hate I'm afraid…
DarkWalker Feb 9th 2012 8:00PM
@Antonius.Prime:
You might want to check your data. WoW lost almost 2 million players in ONE year, not two. In other words, WoW lost over 15% of it's player base in a single year.
Yeah, it's still big. If the 50-50 split between Asia and the rest of the world holds, if you disregard Asia (where TOR and Rift are not available yet), by December 31 WoW had about double the combined subscriber base of TOR and Rift - a truly impressive number.
But it's losing subscribers, and the competition seems to be either holding fast or gaining subscribers. WoW released the last content patch of the current expansion, made available the LFR, was released in Brazil with a heavily discounted subscription price, managed to enroll 1M players in the Annual Pass - and, despite all of this, still managed to lose subscribers (though, granted, at a much slower rate than during previous quarters).
Worse yet, the next quarter should reflect any players that left for TOR (not many of them will have managed to purchase TOR starting on December 20 and cancel the sub, and have the remaining time run out, before December 31) and the lull between expansions (where activity and player base naturally tend to decrease); unless Blizzard can pull another rabbit out of it's hat, expect a larger player drop before MoP.
Antonius.Prime Feb 10th 2012 10:31AM
@ Dark_Walker: I'd have loved to mate, but at 11 PM odd when I posted and I had to be up for work in about 5 hours. :D
But I get ya, saw a few numbers you've posted up elsewhere.
Even with your numbers, its still lost more than are playing others.
Others are, as you've said, "holding fast or gaining".
To those thinking subs lost or gained is somehow a "win"
Sub numbers for these games, including WoW and TOR, are ultimately unimportant. The games are still online and being played.
Hell, even the Granddaddies, Ultima and Everquest, are still running.
I would think that having anything more than 10K subs after 2 years would be a success, but it appears that haters (for all games) seem to have won this particular battle. Which is a shame.
How would people feel if people started posting on the CoD boards that COD1 is dead because everyone is playing MW2? Yeah, makes no sense, does it? But yet, this is what people do whenever there is a reported drop or rise in *any* MMO user base.
/afk, going trolling MW boards saying CS:GO is a COD-Killer... :P
Saltypoison Feb 9th 2012 5:51PM
The "hack-and-slash" link appears to be broken :)
Hensonite Feb 10th 2012 4:47AM
It was probably hacked.
Antonius.Prime Feb 10th 2012 10:33AM
Not slashed, then? :P
Silversol Feb 9th 2012 5:58PM
I'd be curious to know out of the entire player base, how many people are actually eligible for the annual pass. I know it had restrictions on different regions of the world where the pass was not available. I'm guessing that 1 million signing up is not out of 10.2 million playing.
Skarn Feb 9th 2012 7:30PM
They did loosen those restrictions for several countries, but there are certainly still a few that are excluded.
Probably Quebec. They're always out. They've got some restrictive laws up there....
trefpoid Feb 9th 2012 7:35PM
We couldn't sign up for it in Latin America at first, but after capping about 6 threads on the forums, Blizzard heard us and lifted the restriction. I'm sure they did the same for all other regions, so people signed up from everywhere.
Cephas Feb 9th 2012 5:59PM
Well that pretty much settles it - Blizzard has way more MoP Beta testers than they need. I'll be very surprised if any random invites go out to players without annual passes.
Snuzzle Feb 9th 2012 6:32PM
It also means that the Beta invites for Annua Pass players are definitely going to go out in waves. Hopefully it's first-come-first-served, otherwise some people are bound to be mad that they got the Annual Pass just for Beta access and didn't get in until the very tail end.
And it means Beta is going to be very, very crowded with all the VIPs (big name players who are class/spec experts), addon devs, and press in addition to Pass players.
Arrohon Feb 9th 2012 6:38PM
How many will actually stick it out past the "shiny" stage? Not many out of that million are going to test the game. Sure, plenty will try it out, but that's it. They're trying a new game, not testing a buggy mess, and making the final product better. Those glorious people will be much fewer.
jfofla Feb 9th 2012 7:46PM
I don't think MOP Beta is going to be like past Betas.
I think Blizzard wants to withhold the mystery.
Look at how limited the Diablo Beta is, I think the entire MOP Beta will consist of the starting zone only.
Cephas Feb 10th 2012 1:00AM
Well, yeah, but the same thing would happen with random invites, too. How many random invites do you think Blizzard had to gave out for the last Beta? Do you think they had to give out more than 1 million?